G Suite and Nielsen carry out digital transformation – Digital Transformation

Nielsen is a multinational data measurement and analysis company, specializing in providing the most complete and reliable information to users and markets around the world. As part of the campaign to prioritize the application of cloud computing technology – “Cloud-First”, Nielsen has moved nearly 56,000 users up G Suite in just 6 months. Thanks to the approach and careful conversion planning along with the practical benefits of G Suite, this company was able to achieve achievements beyond expectations.

1/ How does Nielsen work?

With a scope of operations spanning over 100 countries, Nielsen is one of the most famous and trusted research companies in the world. With this scale, Nielsen currently has up to 56,000 users working to bring information, data and help its customers gain a deeper understanding of what consumers are watching, listening to and buying. This valuable information is an indispensable element whether your business is operating in the fields of media, entertainment, retail or has products that serve consumers. Nielsen research helps these companies get closer to their customers in a competitive market.

And to do that, Nielsen is required to create the most favorable conditions so that its employees can work together, discuss and exchange information without being hindered by geographical location. (of target markets or even their offices in each country). 

With this request, Nielsen found the answer to the problem of teamwork: Bring applications to the Cloud, allowing employees to work anytime, anywhere, on any device.

Kimberly Anstett – CIO at Nielsen shared that: “With the “Cloud – first” strategy as well as the requirements of digital transformation, we want to bring our employees “class” and quality collaboration tools. best. We know that a suite of cloud application tools will help transform the way everyone works and maximize the value we bring to our customers.”

Requirements for the productivity toolkit that Nielsen wants to find: 

• They must be able to support users from all over the world, using the same process
• Get many features ready to serve the business (without too much intervention from the IT department)
• Great integration and compatibility with other software and applications
• Strong security capabilities

After acquiring a business that had successfully transformed teamwork through Google applications, Nielsen decided to migrate all of its employees to G Suite (Google Workspace customers).

2/ The company's board of directors' support from the very first stages

Right from the start, Nielsen ensured that all leaders, managers and company leaders, whether in the marketing, communications, security teams, etc., must participate in the process of moving "to the cloud." " This. A series of seminars along with demo sessions with Google helped participants gain direct access and a deeper understanding of G Suite applications. From there, they understand the importance and practical benefits of real-time collaboration, thanks to cloud computing technology. The enterprise's IT department also directly trains leaders and their assistants one-on-one, ensuring everyone understands one core thing: G Suite is the right choice for Nielsen.

“It is important that we have the participation and support of the leaders, from the people who are at the top of each area of the company, to drive and support the migration to G Suite. Having the support of the company's leadership right from the start has fueled excitement and confidence that G Suite can help everyone in the company be more productive.” – CIO Kimberly shared.

“We see the move to G Suite as an opportunity to help people improve their productivity; it also helps Nielsen strengthen relationships with its 56,000 employees globally.” – Nerina Martinez – Chief Technology Officer at Nielsen.

3/ Converted 56,000 users in just 6 months

With a multinational and large-scale company like Nielsen, changing the working habits of employees is not an easy thing. Therefore, the company must approach the transformation and manage the transformation process with caution. Some of the factors that the company always considers include: consistent communication messages, focus on leadership and engagement, always focused on employees. 

“The transition to G Suite is not just about technology, it also requires a huge effort to manage change.” Nielsen even appointed a leader – Change management leader – to be in charge and work alongside a project manager, technical architect.

Nielsen breaks down the transition into stages, focusing on creating a culture of collaboration. The company then identified several key user groups, including: end users who are employees, administrative assistants, people on the leadership team, as well as core IT staff and support specialists. technical assistance. Of these groups, Nielsen decided to transition and lead the IT team first, because their workloads are often impacted the most if there is a change in technology.

For employees who volunteer to test G Suite first, they will start using it Google Docs, Sheets, Slides to improve your workflow. For each of its global offices, Nielsen has a Google Guide that helps distribute marketing materials, raise awareness and ensure that their employees can quickly get answers to any questions. Which topic? 

A month before the official transition, the research company conducted more than 100 training sessions in 8 languages to help employees understand what they can do with G Suite. Nielsen also provides essential resources such as training videos, quick tutorials to help users get started using G Suite applications in 15 minutes or less.

4/ Get used to real-time collaboration

With this transition, Nielsen's workflow was not interrupted, but on the contrary, saw a huge increase in work productivity.

It can be said that Google Drive is a particularly important application that has completely changed the way employees work for so long. Specifically, the transition from “working on email” to “collaborating in real time”. Since the old way of working had to depend entirely on each incoming and outgoing email, on the very first day, when Google Drive was introduced – usage jumped to 92%.

In the past, if a team needed to prepare a presentation, they would have to email back and forth. Then wait for colleagues to comment, edit, update changes, then send back... This is a process that not only takes time but also easily leads to mistakes, discrepancies, and errors in information. Meanwhile with Google Docs, Sheets, Slides – they can quickly comment and collaborate with each other right on the interface of the document at the same time, using any device, no longer have to worry about document versions are often constrained to a single device.

5/ Help the IT department become more efficient and productive 

If in the past using traditional software (which must be installed on a computer), Nielsen's IT department always had to support permanent staff, now they can focus on strategic tasks. more combustible. Not to mention, with G Suite work is also somewhat automated.

For example: In the past, if IT support was needed, the two sides would have to exchange information through a lot of emails and then have to fill out dozens of fields for reporting purposes. Typically, an IT team will have to collect data from more than 150 other teams, and have to use a lot of different spreadsheets. Now, everything has been wrapped up and simplified with just one survey in Google Forms.

6/ Commitment to innovation

As Google is always improving and updating with new features for G Suite, Nielsen also ensures that: Employees will also know how to use those features and improve their work. An interesting thing is: Nielsen has formed for its employees a very “flexible” mindset about product characteristics and G Suite applicability, not being tied to a specific process and feature. how can. Thanks to that, the entire company also built a completely different spirit when approaching digital transformation.

“With G Suite, there's always a new feature coming out that is sure to help someone at Nielsen,” Nerina said. With these updates, our users are always excited to discover new ways to be more productive.”

It can be said that choosing G Suite for the transition to the Cloud not only meets the general work requirements but also opens up new opportunities for this global data analytics unit.

Source: Gimasys